Manchester City 2–0 Brentford
by James Nalton
at the City of Manchester stadium

MANCHESTER CITY extended their unbeaten run in the Premier League to 14 games following victory against Brentford on Wednesday evening.

And Pep Guardiola’s side were made to work for their 13th win during in this run.

Though Brentford were an occasional threat on the counter-attack, their main feature was that of defensive organisation.

City struggled to break them down at times, with periods of prolonged possession often leading to nothing.

But on the rare occasions Brentford slipped up, the home side had enough quality to capitalise.

They were able to do so thanks in no small part to the shift put in by Belgian midfielder Kevin De Bruyne.

The 30-year-old is part 80s English midfield workhorse - part technical genius, combining tough tackles with tiki-taka.

He also has a decent shot on him. He showed as much to score City’s second after Raheem Sterling intercepted a stray pass out from the back from Brentford goalkeeper David Raya.

Sterling’s subsequent shot was saved by the keeper, who may have thought he’d atoned for his error, but De Bruyne was on hand to fire the rebound inside the near post away from Raya and the covering defenders.

Sterling had helped give City the lead after an ill-advised sliding tackle on him from Mads Roerslev was only ever going to have one outcome. Penalty.

Riyad Mahrez dispatched the spot-kick with aplomb to give City the lead just before half-time.

Brentford were mildly threatening once in a while, with Frank Onyeka having a couple of shots saved easily by Ederson.

Just when second-half substitute Bryan Mbeumo looked to be mounting one of Brentford’s more dangerous breaks, De Bruyne sprinted to back steal the ball in the right-back position, before going on to score City’s second just a few minutes later.

“It is so difficult to attack them,” Guardiola said of Thomas Frank’s Brentford side on BT Sport after the game.

“They’re so aggressive with high pressing, man to man [defence]. When we were able to do good build-up play, they drop a lot then and defend so so deep, so compact. So it’s difficult.

“We needed to be patient and make no mistakes and, in the end, we got the result.”

City are now 12 points clear at the top of the Premier League. Even if second-place Liverpool win both of their games in hand, one of which is tonight against Leicester City, they will still be six points ahead.

“There are 14 games to play, many points to play for and still more tough games like today,” added Guardiola.

“Everyone is tough, tough competition. We are going to play a lot, but it’s important to at this stage have 60 points — it means we have done incredibly well so far.”